[Met Performance] CID:331207

New Production

Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, December 7, 1998

Debut : Vinicio Cheli




Lucia di Lammermoor (508)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Ruth Ann Swenson

Edgardo
Ramón Vargas

Enrico
Roberto Frontali

Raimondo
Alastair Miles

Normanno
Ronald Naldi

Alisa
Jane Shaulis

Arturo
Matthew Polenzani


Conductor
Carlo Rizzi


Production
Nicolas Joël

Set Designer
Ezio Frigerio

Costume Designer
Franca Squarciapino

Lighting Designer
Vinicio Cheli [Debut]





Lucia di Lammermoor received seventeen performances this season.

FUNDING:
Production gift of the Estate of Joanne Toor Cummings

Review 1:

Jerome R. Sehulster in the Advocate
The Met’s “Lucia” Peppered With Wonderful Performances

The Metropolitan Opera unveiled its third new production of the current season Monday night in a revival of Gaetano Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor."

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Although not perfect, this new production — directed by Nicolas Joel, designed by Ezio Frigerio and costumed by Franca Squarciapino — atones for one of the Met's most glaring misfires of the decade, the infamous 1992 "coffin" production by Francesca Zambella and designer John Conklin.?

A work the caliber of "Lucia di Lammermoor," one of great Romantic bet canto operas and a staple of the standard repertory, needs a respectable mise en scene. Here it gets one.

Real passionate desperation comes more clearly from Ramon Vargas in the role of Edgardo. Sporting a lighter sound than many previous tenors in this role, Vargas still has telling impact. He combines an exquisite line, a pleasing flexibility, and, above all, a dramatic ring that creates, especially in the final scene, a steadily building effect.

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Yet even in the finale, when he has the audience completely in his hands, he doesn't merely stand forth and belt it out. His every phrase is meaningfully and musically treated. Vargas gives a marvelous performance.

Another wonderful performance comes from basso Alastair Miles, who sings the role of Raimondo, the Lammermoor's chaplain and tutor. It can be an interesting role. Miles infuses his three-dimensional character with generous sound.

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Apart from the scenic need, another reason for a new "Lucia" was to honor American coloratura soprano Ruth Ann Swenson. An artist of considerable talent, Swenson has essayed many of the classic roles for her voice type. Here, as in her previous roles, she makes seemingly impossible feats of vocal bravura sound easy. She held the audience in a hushed thrall during stretches of Lucia’s famous Mad Scene, matching the flautist note for note.

But, although solidly correct, Swenson's Lucia lacks the sort of desperate abandon one looks for in a young woman enmeshed in clandestine love, family conflict, forced marriage and madness. And while it's true that other fine Lucias (Joan Sutherland leaps to mind) did not disintegrate psychologically in front of the audience's eyes, they were able to generate excitement in other forms of abandon.

Real passionate desperation comes more clearly from Ramon Vargas in the role of Edgardo. Sporting a lighter sound than many previous tenors in this role, Vargas still has telling impact. He combines an exquisite line, a pleasing flexibility, and, above all, a dramatic ring that creates, especially in the final scene, a steadily building effect.

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Yet even in the finale, when he has the audience completely in his hands, he doesn't merely stand forth and belt it out. His every phrase is meaningfully and musically treated. Vargas gives a marvelous performance.

Another wonderful performance comes from basso Alastair Miles, who sings the role of Raimondo, the Lammermoor's chaplain and tutor. It can be an interesting role. Miles infuses his three-dimensional character with generous sound.?

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In contrast, Roberto Frontali, as Enrico, is more one-dimensional and less subtle, though sometimes thrilling vocally.

On [first] night Ronald Naldi was, for him, unusually nasal as Normanno; Matthew Polenzani made the most of Arturo's short wedding.?

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus, prepared by Raymond Hughes, sounded much better by Act 2.?

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In the pit, conductor Carlo Rizzi took great care with Donizetti's long musical phrases, though at times it seemed he lavished too much care.?

One wished for more energy in critical places. No, this is not a more muscular Verdi score, but Romantic opera is about uninhibited passions, and Donizetti knew what he was doing.?

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Director Joel offered few surprises in his staging, though his Enrico did a lot of unnecessary pushing.?

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Lucia's meeting with Edgardo in Act 1, Scene 2, was set in front of a massive Scottish cliff. Then, when the crazed Lucia reappears at the wedding fete, bloody dagger in hand, the great walls of the hall of Lammermoor open to again reveal the rocks, so as to suggest that her mind has returned to Edgardo. This is consistent with the text of the Mad Scene, but I'm not sure the text needs visual reinforcements to make the point.?

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Frigerio, who most recently, designed the Met's. 1987 “Trovatore" seems to like polished black floors and, here, richly textured wood and stained glass interiors. The wedding (Act 2, Scene 2) was Romantic and beautiful.?

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But, as in his "Trovatore," scenes out-of-doors were less successful, particularly at the aforementioned cliff. It was very far upstage and the polished black floor filling most of the Met's vast but here empty space hardly enhanced the misty magic of Lucia's tryst with Edgardo in Act I.



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